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Russia Working on Soyuz Replacement
Buran writes "The Associated Press is reporting that RKK Energia is starting design work on a new manned spacecraft able to carry a crew of six (or more) to the International Space Station. The vehicle may have a reusable crew module (current Soyuz TMA and Progress vehicles are disposable) and would theoretically finally allow ISS crew size to increase, as the current limiting factor is the capacity of the Soyuz spacecraft, designed in the early 1960s for manned lunar flights. (While Soyuz never flew to the Moon, its Zond circumlunar variant did so several times, and Soyuz and Progress craft have been resupplying various space stations for over three decades.) It will be interesting to see how this develops, as at present ISS crews spend more time maintaining the station than they do performing research, due to the fact that the station wasn't designed to operate with a crew as small as two or three people."
Isn't NASA a major player in the ISS Project? Don't throw rocks from your glass house, Mir was doing better at this stage in its life then the ISS is doing right now.
Whereas the US ended up with the expensive and dangerous Space Shuttle - now grounded indefinately - the USSR managed to design the simple, usable and much cheaper Soyuz.
Maybe this is because under capitalism every decision is a compromise between rival power structures, while good engineering is an open discource between co-operating equals? (Compare Windows vs. Open Source)
Good luck to the Russians! Maybe they can keep the dream of space alive until we get our act together and join them again - in the spirit of human expansion and scientific discovery.
It could be useful if we want to come up with a plan similar to this one for colonizing Mars. Due to Earth's immense gravity, weight and aerodynamics are critical in spaceship construction. However, once the ship is in low gravity these considerations are totally irrelevant. Given a good space station we could have three sets of spacecraft: a true space shuttle for lifting things up to the station; transportation craft designed to move things between planets and moons, and explore new areas; and landers designed to reach planetary surfaces. Assuming we'd be establishing actual colonies on the moon and eventually Mars, this is probably the only cost-effective way of doing it.
In space you can do a lot of cool things with something as simple as a piece of string - provided, of course, that your "string" is made of high-tech materials, has an electrically conductive core, and measures many kilometers long. Tethers have electrodynamic applications - for example, a tether in Earth orbit to which electricity is applied will interact with Earth's magnetic field and climb to a higher orbit without using propellant. Allowing ionospheric electrons to move through the tether via plasma contactors at both ends causes the tether to slow down and drop to a lower orbit. Tethers also have momentum-exchange applications. Physically linking high- and low-orbit objects with a tether forces the object in lower orbit (for example, a spacecraft) to travel slower than dictated by orbital mechanics, while the higher-orbit object (for example, a payload) travels faster. If the tether is cut, the payload will jump to a higher orbit while the spacecraft will drop to a lower one. Hoyt and Uphoff propose a Cislunar Tether Transport System for shipping cargo between low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the lunar surface using minimal propellants. Their work is described by "Cislunar Tether Transport System," AIAA 99-2690, R. Hoyt & C. Uphoff; paper presented at the 35th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit, Los Angeles, California, June 20-24, 1999.
That's just one example of the stuff we could try if we had a serious space program with good infrastructure. Once a moon colony starts to have practical value (mining, manufacture in decreased gravity, science, and of course, the all-important military applications) we'll start to see progress down this road. Unfortunately, it will be a long time before that happens. The military, our best bet to kick-start the process, won't bother until rival nations start building fleets of armed satellites.
Once the military faces the prospect of a space-based war all these ideas are no longer just cool, they may be essential to survival. So, the best-funded operation in the world will be determined to create a moon base capable of controlling space near Earth. Once that's done it will be paid for and justified by tacking on scientific and industrial components. Yes, that's how we're most likely to begin our grand and heroic journey into the destiny of man-for the purpose of being able to kill each other more effectively. Human nature, right?
But don't worry, recent history shows us that the best deterrent to war is mutual assured destruction, and we'll be fairly safe until we have a large enough moon base to become self sufficient and declare independence from Earth. In Soviet Russia, the moon colonizes YOU!
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Buran still is the most advanced manned spacecraft that humans have made.
The production version was able to take off, fly to orbit, orbit, de-burn and go through re-entry, land on a runway and come to a complete stop - entirely unmanned and on autopilot. (And it did exactly this on it's one and only flight).
It's an absolute crying shame that there was no money for it, but hopefully the technology and lessons learned will still be around for the next generation of spacecraft (that actually get funded).